Highway Dept Contract Extended

By John Voket

Town Highway Department workers who are Local 1303-200 members represented by the Connecticut Council #4 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the AFL-CIO have requested and received a one-year contract extension. The request to extend the contract was made via a memo from union President Jeffrey Thomas to First Selectman Joe Borst November 20, and was subsequently unanimously approved by the Board of Selectmen.

Mr Borst reported the extension to the Legislative Council during the council’s regular meeting December 3.

The original contract, which would have been due for negotiations in the spring of 2009, would have been one of three labor negotiations taking place that year, along with the town hall employees and the emergency communications workers contracts. The action to delay the Highway Departement negotiations breaks that action out, and will be the only town union facing new contract negotiations in 2010.

According to the memo from Mr Thomas, “Many aspects of everyone’s lives are now being affected, and are possibly in jeopardy; so we as citizens are trying very hard to stay grounded to something stable while our country’s economic situation spirals out of control.”

The agreement stipulates Highway Department union members will receive all benefits of the final year of the current contract, including a 3.5 percent pay increase. Mr Thomas said in the memo that putting off the negotiations for no more than one year would be beneficial to both parties.

“We hope that in this one-year period our country’s economic and political position will have drastically improved,” Mr Thomas wrote. “Also, in that year, both parties should be optimistic about the house and senate trying to pass the legislation for a health care partnership between state and municipal employees.”

He also mentions hope for President-elect Barack Obama’s new health care proposals and a public works stimulus program, which Mr Thomas said “could result in huge savings to the town.”

One party close to the process, who was not officially authorized to speak on the matter, told The Bee that while an imminent negotiation might include givebacks, and result in a nominal cut to the increase granted by the extension, the difference between an anticipated eventual settlement of three percent, and the extension providing 3.5 percent amounted to an “inconsequential amount of money.”

Mr Thomas’ memo references a 1998 extension of the same contract, which was agreed to by both the union and the town “with no argument.”

In other town labor action, the town recently completed negotiations with the union employees of the Parks & Recreation Department, and negotiations with the police union are currently ongoing.